


Rebuilding Home

by JellyFicsnFucks



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Underfell (Undertale), Other, Underfell Papyrus (Undertale)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 20:54:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29615274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JellyFicsnFucks/pseuds/JellyFicsnFucks
Summary: Inspired by Acid Bunny's vampire comic~ ( ^o^)~ Please give it a read. Link inside.This is an alternative underfell interpretation of how things may fall out after the war, when monsters were forced underground. Short drabble.
Kudos: 11





	Rebuilding Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Acid_Bunny010](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acid_Bunny010/gifts).



> Inspired by Acid Bunny's vampire comic~ ( ^o^)~ Please give it a read part 1 is[ here](https://twitter.com/AcidicBuns0/status/1328496669189607424/photo/1) The story is really good ^^ Also follow their twitter♥ its 18+ Here is [ sfw Tumblr. ](https://acid0bunny.tumblr.com/) And [ Deviant Art ](https://www.deviantart.com/edmaer/gallery)
> 
> I wrote this a little earlier than the current comic updates so I didn't know where the story was headed yet. Thus this is just a short drabble. Completely unrelated but still I wanted to give them credit ♥ This is an alternative underfell interpretation of how things may fall out after the war, when monsters were forced underground.

The underground was home to many monsters, but some would call it a prison. For the thousands who were trapped behind those sealed doors, under mountains of soil and rock, it was a mass grave.

In the beginning, high off the waves of war, monsters had to battle each other for resources. The scarcity in the underground where no light would reach meant that fruits and vegetables were extinct. The rotting rations soldiers carried on them were all the food left for the sake of monsterkind to continue. What followed was the murders of thousands of civilians. Those who were unfortunate enough to be born weak were disposed of. Monsters became greedy. They sought only to look after themselves. Why share, when they were all going to die down here?    
  
Those who could see in the dark were better adapted to fight in the shadows. To steal. To kill. To level and thrive. Without mercy, they murdered their fellow soldiers for a scrap of stale bread.

And when the food ran out…? Well...it was then that monsters had to make a tough choice.

There were some, like an unknown scientist from long ago, who tried to harness the magma flows to fuel machines. It started an industrial age in the underground. For a short while, monsters worked together to build homes and keep the machine running by feeding it blocks of ice, removing the tar of waste from the gears and cranking open the valves manually to power the underground. There was a supply of mushrooms fed to those who worked, but it wasn't incentive enough for the hard labour required.  Many went hungry striving for a future that may never come.

There were others who didn’t work. Some who didn’t see the need for teamwork when they could survive day by day by being selfish. They sought cannibalism. Yet, it wasn’t a brutish act. To kill a monster was barbaric, but to eat one was an art. It was a delicate process to refine another monster into something palatable. They had to be on the very cusp of death so that their flesh wouldn’t dust before it was consumed. They had to be healed so their hope wouldn't drop and their soul wouldn't crack. The eating of other monsters became a standard practice. To the point where if a monster couldn’t pay, limbs would be extracted as currency.

Enter Sans and Papyrus.

Unlike the other monsters, their diet was a tad different. Skeletons didn’t have the guts nor muscle needed for metabolism and nutrition. Yet all the same, they needed some substance to keep their souls and magic pumping through their limbs.

When they lived on the surface, this diet was fulfilled by the millions of ‘livestock’, grown and nurtured by the earth. So easy was it, to simply wander into town and find suitable delicacies. They gathered in crowds and were abundant to catch. The old were easy to farm, yet bitter and over ripened. The sweetest of the crops, grown in those sun basked mountains, were the hardest to get. For the young ones were always protected by the rest of the herd.

...But human children were often too curious for their own good.

In the moonless nights, together, the undead would claim the streets as their own. Take what they want and live how they wanted. The overabundance of prey made undead monsters the majority. Life was good. There used to be more skeletons back in those days.

Papyrus fondly remembered his neighbors. His friends. ...His family. All of whom were slaughtered or separated from him fighting in the wars or being funneled down into the underground. Everything was taken from him in one fell swoop.

The war was lost and Monsters were forced underground.

His eyelights glew in the dark cavernous cities, so he survived those early months when monsters fought amongst themselves for scraps. He gained an absurd amount of Lv from killing his own. And the practice of eating others- a taste unique and odd. Yet beautiful and aromatic in his skull long after he’d eaten. HIs magic hummed with energy. He felt stronger here than he even did on the surface.

He had thought he was alone. The last of his kind, in a cruel underground where monsters thought their entire life was: kill or be killed. For years he stayed away from others, except to feed. His eyes burned through the dark and peered at whatever poor soul had crossed his path. He stayed in the deepest part of the caves, an offshoot in Waterfall where he could hear the faintest bead of water plunk towards the ground, as well as the padded footsteps of whoever was dumb enough to pass. He’d never seen another skeleton, and then-

-he caught a glimpse of ivory white bone. Running.

It couldn’t be true. He had to be imagining it! He chased after the fleeting image of his own. Running down streets paved by the blood and sweat of monsters. Past trenches dug out and veins of rock that had been hollowed. He crossed a bridge that overlooked a gaping gorge below. He rounded buildings that had been years in the making.

The process of the underground had grown before his very eyes. He didn’t know how elaborate monsters had been working towards society until he’d lost sight of his target in the busy streets of a … town?

Papyrus looked around, confused by this sudden society. How many years had he spent alone? The underground was supposed to be a harsh place for monsters to live… so when did they erect large towns and cities?

Papyrus stumbled through the snow. The white pillowy cold was something he never thought he’d see again. It was a relic of the surface. A winter that couldn’t possibly permeate through the rocky caves. Yet existed. He looked up to see air vents funneling out the pillowy white cold. The snowy air created by machines. There were homes.Families. Monsters sharing gyfts. Businesses. Buildings. Groceries. Neighbors. Inns. Bars. Bakeries. … Life.

So distracted by the bright lights and lively crowds… Papyrus forgot he was chasing someone. He grunted, looking for that pallor of bone but he’d lost them.

Well. It mattered not. They would be back. If this was the burrow his precious white rabbit had run too, he just had to be patient and wait.

  
  


Besides, it seemed like everything he wanted was right here. He missed the interaction of monsters again. The semblance of … civilization.

So Papyrus rejoined monster society. Restarting anew amongst this… savage place. Monsters trying to make a name for themselves, a life founded in their own despair.

Then he realized something. The few survivors of monster society left weren’t the same roughians that fought in the war versus humans. This remainder was weak and scrawny. Leftovers. They were monsters that were afraid of battle, so hid. And monsters that were fast, so they fled. They were a bunch of thieves and liars that would rather stab an enemy in the back than face them head on.

Cowards.

There was still some competition of course. There was an amazing fire elemental somehow in this place called “Snowdin”. Such a tacky name. That elemental was oozing violence, but the fire breath valued his little bar rather than being a leader of the pack. Papyrus also heard whispers of the King and Queen surviving, living off in the capitol somewhere.

Capitol? There couldn't exist something like that underground right? And yet, he was standing in snow. With artificial daylight above his head provided by lamps. He felt the ancient breath of wind pass his nape. It seemed impossible.

He wasn’t very adjusted to this new underground. Spent so long in the caves of the dark he’d ignored the fact a few miles away, monsters were trying not just to survive, but live down here.

He grimaced. Surely if that giant furball was alive, he’d give him a piece of his mind. The disgraced King was the one who led them all down here to die. Papyrus swore he’d hurt the bastard.

He walked forever. Through snow and ice. Through trails of rock and steep slippery hills. Through wispy webs of bridges and through volcanic steam-propelled jets. Until finally, he was at the king’s doorstep. The broken slabs of cement grew vegetation from below. Flowers he’d never seen in the underground grew here. How? Without sunlight?

There was a hum of energy that buzzed there. And Papyrus remembered… years ago this used to be the place monsters were dumped. That barrier lied further in. The very last streams of sun flowed through these halls. Selfishly turned into a kingdom.

Papyrus wanted revenge for monsters. Revenge for the underground. Revenge for the friends he lost. The family he’d never have. Revenge for his entrapment down here. His isolation.

Asgore was tall. Standing even taller than Papyrus. His horns practically scraped the top of the chappel. Under either eye were the bloody scars of claws trying to tear into his own face. Out of grief or anger? Papyrus hadn’t expected to see a self-inflicted battle wound. His black beard was untamed. His crown was broken. A fragment of it was worn around his neck like a keepsake.

“... Papyrus.” He knew his name. Papyrus flinched, readying himself for battle against the legendary general-king. “It is good to see old friends.”

Friends….Papyrus scowled at the term. They were far from friends. He’d thought the old bastard died along with his stupid war. This man- the sole reason monsters were trapped down here. The reason monsters were near hunted to extinction- was watering daisies. Papyrus wanted to smack the stupid blue pale from his hand.

“I had feared nearly all the skeletons were gone now. Sans certainly felt the same way-”

Sans?! Papyrus was suddenly all ears. His malice forgotten. Now he turned attentively to the ex-king. Waiting for orders. Waiting for that thin veil of hope that Sans was alive. What did he know? Was this a lie? A trap? Should Papyrus be on guard? He didn’t trust the mangy furball but- Sans. Sans could be alive.

His fingers twitch at his sides. Ready for combat. Ready for awful news. He couldn’t bare to lose more. Papyrus whispers, his voice -unused for years- cracks with a meager plea. “...Tell me.”

  
  
  
  



End file.
